Friday, 26 May 2017

The last few days we have been keeping it a bit calmer, making shorter distances and in general doing less. We have been so busy with seeing as much as possible and visiting a million thrift stores that we really needed to take a break before we are heading back home.

We only went a little more north up the coast and then west in lands.

We drove through many beautiful roads, sometimes the trees are so dense that the road is dark. We went through tiny towns with just a few hundred people, farms, ranches, forest and mountains, the landscape constantly changes.

I marked the places where we spent a night, today we are at Yuba City and tomorrow Nevada City, after that we will be going North back to San Francisco as we are flying back home from there.

We stayed a few days near the lake which was peaceful.

And today we did a last thrift store marathon, getting all our treasures home will be a challenge, my globe collection has about doubled during this trip, it has been crazy :)

Some towns are very calm, life is slower.

These old cars were just there, clearly been there for a long time, in the middle of the city, strange but nice.

We'll be flying home Sunday morning local time, and will arrive home Monday evening local time there, oh boy :)

Monday, 22 May 2017

On Friday we went from Sacramento to Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa was a lovely town but not much to do for us, except that we met an Etsy customer, which was fun.

On Saturday I drove almost all day which was a bit too long, Google maps is not always the best way to plan a trip but it was beautiful.

First we went from Santa Rosa to the coast at Bodega Bay, which was beautiful, many Sea lions and Seagulls, they were actually fighting over fish.

The Sea lions were huge and the seagulls were quiet brave to fight them.

We had a long day on the road on Saturday, but is was gorgeous. For me it was the first time to see an ocean. It was very misty and mysterious. A very cool wind due to the cold Ocean waves, so very different of the hot Mediterranean sea we have.

You could hardly see the Ocean, it was all misty and hazy.

The roads were also swallowed by the mist the Ocean gives, even towns were under a blanket of mist. It gave a mysterious vibe, very beautiful.

Even though everything seems grey the flowers near the shores were colorful. Pictures don't do it all justice. The shores were high and the places I took pictures from were pretty high. The waves impressive.

It seemed like the perfect place to shoot some horror movies, the mist created by the waves and the difference of the temperature between the water and the air, hid lots of things.

This trail was super steep, you don't see it but we were very high, hence why the ocean seems so out of focus.

We go to the sea every week at home, but I never seen such views, so very different and breath taking.

We also went through plenty of forests. The landscape changes a lot here, much more than in Europe, which makes it wonderful to drive through as you never get bored.

From time to time we passed a tiny town with a few hundred people.

We saw a Yard Sale sign pointing to the middle of nowhere and decided to follow it and see where it would lead us.

We ended up at someone's land with some stuff outside, but what caught our attention most were two female peacocks which at first seemed to be looking at the merchandise...

But turned out they were checking themselves in the mirror that was for sale at the yard sale :)
Apparently their neighbor had lots of birds which are just free, it was so funny and bizarre.

Some bays were clear of the misty waves, those reminded us of home.

But no urchins or shells on the beach, very colorful kelp and seaweed was adorning the beaches.

We stayed at Willits last night which was through a beautiful forest road. And tonight we are staying at Fort Bragg, which is famous for its Glass beach. Not much driving today but tomorrow we will go in lands again.

Fort Bragg is famous for the amount of sea glass. It used to be a dump side but nature turned that in something beautiful (this was of course when there was no plastic so the things dumped were not so bad as they are now).

There were a lot of people, it was Sunday I guess throughout the week it wouldn't be. I picked a few sea glass pieces as a souvenir. We went to the Sea Glass museum which was more a souvenir shop than anything else, privately owned by a grumpy Captain, not much fun imho.

The bays are just gorgeous no matter famous or not. I do prefer the not famous ones as those are quiet.

Tomorrow we'll stay at Upper Lake, we might stay a little longer there to keep it a little easy and relax a bit before our long horrible trip back home with 3 planes (yikes) and lots of luggage (more yikes).

Thursday, 18 May 2017

On Monday we left Nevada City and went to Lake Tahoe. I have been there last year but it was then in August, very warm and sunny. Now there was still lots of snow due to the altitude of the mountains. It seemed like we went from California to Switzerland, the landscape was so different.

If you check my pictures of last year you'll see some same angles but very differently.

It was nice and calm this time, much less people which I found to be a good thing. It was a bit cold but that was okay :)

After 5 years of drought in many places of California it has been a terrific Winter with lots of rain, the result is lots of waterfalls and greenness.

We saw a cute little chipmunk, very busy eating and not caring about all the people looking at him.

After Lake Tahoe we headed to Reno.

Reno is just a large city, as it is in Nevada there are plenty of Casino's. The reason we came here is that I wanted to meet an old Etsy Friend, Frances Melhop, who moved here in 2010. It was so nice to meet here after so many years.

Reno itself did have something fun for us which was tons of Thrift shops, we are having a major luggage drama here, not sure yet how we are going to bring everything back, and we still have 10 days to go so it is going to be crazy :D

And we went to Virginia city which we had not heard of but it is the town where the writer Samuel Clemens started to write under the name Mark Twain. So it really has some history, and the nice part is you can fully appreciate its history as everything is kind of stuck in 1860 or so.

There are actually surprisingly many little towns that still have a vibe of a 100 years ago, this town is in Nevada but we also saw a few in California, places we never had hear of from our neck of the woods.

This Antiques and Rocks shop was unfortunately closed but it looked promising and curious.

Most shops were embracing the Wild West that is the theme of the town, and even though some locals are very genuine the shops were more touristic but never the less very fun to look at, and we did shop a little.

It was very cold that day and this town is very windy so the streets were very empty which normally is not the case so the cold was a good thing although we were freezing :)

It was an adorable town and we loved it, I'm sure it is fun in the Summer too, a bit crowded I'm guessing and apparently gun shows are all the rage then, which is not really our cup of tea ;)

The shops had the craziest names like Bucket of Blood and Suicide Table, very Wild West.

The side walks were wood which must be fun when you walk around in heavy cowboy boots :)

Tomorrow we are heading back down towards Sacramento and then the coast to Santa Rosa and we'll be around the ocean for a while :)

Esther and Estella

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We are a mother and daughter team (Esther & Estella), creating jewelry, bags, clothing and home decor. Nature is our biggest inspiration and often a great source for materials too! We like to blog about our creative processes, our new creations, fun things from Turkey, life with our big pack of doggies and everything else...